Business coach charts courses for success

Pat Morgan is in the business of helping people achieve success. Through her company — Smooth Sailing, Executive and Life Coaching – she will help an entrepreneur start a business (or talk them out of it) or help someone who is already in business find the best course for success.

“Smooth Sailing helps busy professionals be empowered to create a life that they love,” said Morgan. “I work with business owners and business leaders to help them make the choices so they can really live the life that they want to live. The way we do that is through career development. Almost everyone has a career that they are working in and they have goals around that, so I help them sort out things in their career so they can be more successful.”

Morgan, a native of Oklahoma who came to Miami 10 years ago by way of Denver, says business leaders need a sounding board, someone they can bounce their ideas off of, and a safe place where they can talk through issues and ideas before they have to go out and try them. That, she says, is where she plays a role.

“Being a leader is a very lonely position because you have to be on all the time and you are expected to know the answers,” she said. “By working with leaders, I can help them to get more clear strategies together and also to manage themselves more effectively.”

Morgan says that upper level management people – the leaders – understand the need for a “coach” because they realize that they often neglect their personal life in their quest for success.

“The hardest work we do is managing ourselves,” she said. “We all know the things we need to do – take care of our health, exercise regularly, eat well, make time for ourselves, and be available for relationships or families. But most of us put our work first and then there’s never really enough time for ourselves. So, one of the things I do is help a person be more empowered to make the choices every day that are going to take them to the success they want to have.”

Morgan says that most people do not have clear goals about what they want to accomplish in life.

“Somewhere along the way they have lost the vision for what they wanted to create with their life,” she said. “They had a dream and a goal, then started down the career path and got a job. Then, pretty soon they had a mortgage, then a car payment, kids came along and somewhere in all of that they lost the focus for what they wanted to create. So, I help people get back on track to live their dreams, because, if they keep putting it off until someday when the kids are grown, the mortgage is paid or they get that promotion, then they might never do the things that they really want to do.”

At the same time, Morgan will also analyze a person’s business plans and give them straightforward answers about the potential for success.

“I help people start businesses if they don’t understand what it takes to start a business,” she said. “A lot of people have great ideas or they are very good technically at something – such as fixing computers or baking pies – and they think, ‘Oh, it would be great to have my own business!’ And then they start down the path of being a business owner and they encounter a lot of problems because they don’t really know how to run a business.”

Morgan says she can often provide the advice and direction to avoid many of the pitfalls that new business owners may encounter.